Losing the Language of Happiness

Losing the Language of Happiness: the consequences of ecological destruction.

If you haven’t read Daniel Everertt’s fabulous Don’t Sleep, There are Snakes about his work as a linguist in the Amazon—well, stop whatever you are doing, go directly to Amazon and enjoy.

After 30 years living with and studying the Piraha, a tribe living in the Amazonian basin, Everett has concluded that neither Chomsky’s argument—that language is innate to humans and there are universal laws of grammar—and Skinner’s argument—that language is completely learned and genetics account for nothing—are correct.

Instead, Everett posits that language and culture are completely intertwined and you cannot study one without the other. Furthermore, and this is where things get really interesting, Everett believes that grammar is significantly less important than culture-based meanings and constraints on talking” are the key.

So what’s the big deal?

This is the deal: About 40 years ago, University of Chicago psychologist (and Flow State guru) Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi argued that the human brain takes in about 400 billion inputs a second (some people now feel this number is as high as one trillion) but only 2000 bits of information make it up to consciousness.

Those 2000 bits are what we call conscious reality.

We are now pretty sure Csikszentmihalyi was right in his assessment—but what’s really curious is that none of us—no matter the species—experience the world exactly the same.

That is, we all see 2000 different bits of information, thus we all live in different worlds—quite literally.

Some of this is straight up anatomy. Cognitive Ethologist Patricia McConnell (also in a compelling article about Everett’s work) points out: “the sensory system of each species creates a different reality than other species.” Her example of this is bees—who see colors that humans can’t see (and we see colors they can’t see). Either way, when we glance at a solid yellow flower, bees instead see a swirl of lines and hatching and shading that literally acts as pointers and landing strips driving them towards the pollen within.

McConnell’s conclusion is twofold: “Thus, there really is no such thing as “reality,” and Everett’s work reminds us this is true within our own species.”

I have elsewhere argued that belief shapes perception which shapes reality. What McConnell and Everett are saying is that this chain goes back even farther: ie. language shapes belief shapes perception shapes reality.

And right now, this is a critical bit of information. The reason this is so important is that in a few weeks time, when the Copenhagen climate talks commence, one of the topics on the table is REDD—Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation.

The goal here is to find ways to protect indigenous tribes and the rainforests they live within. This is a big deal. Between June 2000 and June 2008, over 150,000 square kilometers of Amazonian rainforest has been stripped bare by loggers and miners and cattle ranchers.

The number are higher in a few other parts of the world.

When we speak about what was lost in this slaughter, people most frequently talk in terms of dead animals, extinct plants and—perhaps most critically—a vanishing carbon sink.

Clearly, these are all things we cannot afford to lose. But one of the greatest losses may be the indigenous cultures themselves.

Now, since each of these tribes speaks a different language, then each of them have a altered worldview and thus occupy a different reality.

Once these folks are gone, we don’t just lose a group that makes the world more culturally distinct, we lose a way of being in the world. We lose a slice of reality. And, in turn, we also loose a way of interpreting the world that might just be critical to our survival.

What do I mean by this? Well, according to Everett: “Pirahas laugh at everything. They laugh at their own misfortune: when someone’s hut blows over in a rainstorm, the occupants laugh more loudly than anyone. They laugh when they catch a lot of fish. They laugh when there’s no fish to catch. They laugh when they are full and they laugh when they are hungry….”

Think about this for a moment. How many of us can actually laugh when our basic survival needs are not met? How many people start cracking up when they find out the bank is repossessing their house? How many people laugh when they don’t have enough to eat for dinner? Or breakfast? Or both?

Think about what this really means. The last time anyone checked, we are a nation where 10 percent of us are on anti-depressants.

Everett argues that the this depression is not just based on our “neurochemistry” (the reigning theory—thanks, methinks, in a large part to pharmaceutical company advertising)—but also on our language.

Something in the English language perhaps shapes our perception which shapes our reality which makes us freak out when stuff goes wrong…

But the Pirahas just don’t see the world that way.

And—since we also know that worldviews shift when you remove people from their home environment (or remove their home environment altogether)—one of the key things that is going away in all of this is knowledge about emotional contentment.

We are not just losing plants and animals, we are, also, losing a key bit of information that could keep us happy in the face of tragedy.

Considering how heavily medicated some of us currently are, this doesn’t strike me as a loss we can particularly afford.

After learning russian the hard way, I believe that I can provide an opinion of interest. After five years lacking progression in the learning of the russian language, finally an opportunity arose for an amazing experience. A group of eight russians, living together in a communal house of only three bedrooms, and each with two jobs, add in a single american man of only 20, suddenly I found myself in the middle of an immersion of not just russian culture and language, but of the countless ukrainian, bulgarian, moldovian, latvian, polish, buryat, and mongolian cultures from students my age, working over the summer in the little city on the coast. To my amazement, I fordged connections so strong and captured an understanding of the human identity and the astounding perceptions of reality from individual to individual and from culture to culture.After a year living with them in the city, I found my way to siberia, near lake baikal, and close to the mongolian border. Living with buryats and living in a mixed russian city, on the other side of the planet,I now understand the finite differences and connections that humanity builds into both culture and language. I find language to be nothing more than a tool, used by us, in order to communicate. Across the infinitely complex web of communication and language, our own individual perception of how we are currently percieveing things to be and how things should be, is transfered, in some form, with and without language. Tracing the every-changing trends of accents and speech patterns across eastern european and asian regions, there is left little doubt that language does not have the capability to hinder or help the speaker. The thinker must use whatever language he is speaking at that moment, and express his thoughts clearly to his own satisfaction. It is up to the listener to proper understand what is said and to clearly reinforce his own understanding of what was said. Colloquial language is always a good example of the language fads that permeate common speech, and how flexible every language in the world much be in order to properly comprehend each other. Perception changes and affects our world, not this reality. Language is a representation of the culture. We, each one of us, is culture.

happiness, of course in my opinion, is truly the search for freedom. And in order to understand freedom, you must truly ask yourself what is really important in your life and understanding the things you need as much as the things you don't need. Freedom in all aspects of life in this world. Not freedom to destroy, but freedom to live without interference, because you have achieved a situation that allows you to keep power over your life in every aspect. And with every freedom, comes every responsibility of his home, family, and life. You do not bite the hand that feeds you. The earth and all people in it, must obtain some balance of altruistic society and communism, which are mere ideals that do not take hold with people in the wrong state of mind or perception. One man cannot force another to be happy or accept the philosophy of another because each person has their-own philosophy on life and are influenced greatly or slightly to the philosophies that surround and define our existence. One must build a foundation representing his self-control and planning, in order to achieve an understanding of what one needs in life, not wants, but needs at the core. People spend their days dreaming of what they want to be happy, rather than seeing the optimistic balance that can be achieved to satisfy any need and a few wants. Pragmatic thinking and planning, in order to achieve the core fundamentals of understand and an ideal state of mind and station in order to possess this happiness; true freedom and world power in our lives.But not easy or simple to get to it. Over the river and through the woods. trust me.

“no such thing as reality” seems a little strong. E.g. The image in my mind when I say “Window” is not the same as that in your mind. This will be true for all words. However, it is sufficiently close if I describe it further or if the window in question is not too important in the overall idea.

(A real life example is that my Swedish friend uses the word “weird” to mean something is both strange and humorous; I use it to describe something that is unpleasantly strange.)

Trouble would only arise were I to observe 2 spots and 3 spots being drawn and say, “4”. Does this give us the idea that there are 2 categories of thought – the definite and indefinite and it is in the area of the latter where we differ (but even then, not greatly)?
______

“Pirahas laugh at everything. They laugh at their own misfortune: when someone’s hut blows over in a rainstorm, the occupants laugh more loudly than anyone. They laugh when they catch a lot of fish. They laugh when there’s no fish to catch. They laugh when they are full and they laugh when they are hungry….”

The answer might be that the Pirahã simply realise that disasters happen and that there is nothing they can do to stop them; they don’t even try. Further, disasters have always happened and the Pirahã have acceptable social mechanisms to deal with them. (vide: their attitude to death and suffering - see the book) Thus, whilst for us, it might be funny to see a person slip on a banana skin, but not funny at all if we slip on it, the Pirahã just ignore the latter rule.

About language & reality: you're taking a very superficial example, esp. since a window is a human artifact and, I guess, you imagine the other to perfectly be accustomed to windows as you probably are ;-). Now, imagine yourself facing a Pirahã friend's environment for the first time: you would literally not see the same "reality" as them; same thing whenever your friend visits your flat.

About language & happines: I believe a key fact is that, I bet, Pirahãs are hunter-gatherers, not yet too much polluted by western contact. If ever true, they certainly do not tame their kids to conform to a violent, coercive, hierarchical society. Instead they let them develop their human potential naturally, and learn using they extraordinary powerful strive dedicated to that.
As a consequence, those folks probably have far higher ability to happiness and such (empathy, generosity, mutual help, confidence...)

See also another psychologytoday blog: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn

“no such thing as reality” seems a little strong. E.g. The image in my mind when I say “Window” is not the same as that in your mind. This will be true for all words. However, it is sufficiently close if I describe it further or if the window in question is not too important in the overall idea.

(A real life example is that my Swedish friend uses the word “weird” to mean something is both strange and humorous; I use it to describe something that is unpleasantly strange.)

Trouble would only arise were I to observe 2 spots and 3 spots being drawn and say, “4”. Does this give us the idea that there are 2 categories of thought – the definite and indefinite and it is in the area of the latter where we differ (but even then, not greatly)?
______

“Pirahas laugh at everything. They laugh at their own misfortune: when someone’s hut blows over in a rainstorm, the occupants laugh more loudly than anyone. They laugh when they catch a lot of fish. They laugh when there’s no fish to catch. They laugh when they are full and they laugh when they are hungry….”

The answer might be that the Pirahã simply realise that disasters happen and that there is nothing they can do to stop them; they don’t even try. Further, disasters have always happened and the Pirahã have acceptable social mechanisms to deal with them. (vide: their attitude to death and suffering - see the book) Thus, whilst for us, it might be funny to see a person slip on a banana skin, but not funny at all if we slip on it, the Pirahã just ignore the latter rule.

Laughing is of many kinds or modes... The olden Indian Thought clearly states that Happiness is the Ultimate Bliss... or the Ultimate Realization that 'Life is Ephemeral'... SO the Piranas 'laughing over their gains and losses alike' is indeed speaks of human maturity...
But ... it is the mis-contextual 'laugh' that is objectionable...because it is not 'healthy'... Instead of 'releasing the negativity or toxins out' It sor of nurtures them within and gives a bad taste to the others around as well...

SO all this has to be inculcated through due '' ettiquette and manners... If the 'happiness needs to be realized THROUGH the Outside.

Now I have not read this book yet, and thus might be way off here. Never the less, it is obvious they use laughter a lot more than we in our western society, but isn't it probable that they use it in a different way? We use laughter mainly to express joy, and as a social lubricant. If we are new to a group of people, laughter is always a good way to disarm yourself and the strangers. There are of course many other uses in our society as well. But let us see laughter only as a word, in our society this "word" means "good". In their society "word" means "stuff is happening". Isn't it possible that instead of them expressing joy, by saying "word", as their homes are ruined and their food source is depleted, they are actually expressing a series of complex emotions, depending on the situation, by saying "word".

They, as we who speak different languages in the western society also do, have a whole other set of rules for reading each others body language, intonation and emphasis, and as such they derive another context than the one we do from laughter.

Now, as I said, as I don't have the context of that particular book, this might be missing the point entirely (in fact it must be as the article seems to be about reducing emitions) but isn't this a possible explanation of why they laugh at everything?

I believe that the reason they are able to laugh is because in the face of tragedy they are culturally more inclined to help on another... There isn't as much green and envy unlike what we are all indoctrinated with..

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